the question should not be approached in this utilitarian spirit. Christ himself ordained the ministry which the church must perpetuate, whether that ministry is successful or not. But this does not show that the argument is weak; it only shows that some men are not open to conviction. They are not open to conviction, not because they are lacking in intelligence or knowledge, but for a deeper spiritual reason of which we shall speak later.* They value the episcopate, not for its practical utility, but for its spiritual necessity. As the value of the drone in the hive is to be judged not by the amount of work which it accomplishes but by its power of fertilizing the queen bee, so these men seem to think that the value of the episcopate is to be estimated by its power of fertilizing the church so as to bring forth priests to celebrate a valid sacrament. The Protestant believes in the virgin birth of the ministry; the Catholic insists that there must be an earthly father. Therefore, tables of genealogy seem to him to be an essential part of the church's gospel.

The problem before the churches in America is in many ways the same as that which confronted the early Christian church. As long as the question was one which concerned the particular locality, one of the ministries mentioned by Paul seemed as well fitted as another to do the work, but when the problem was to Christianize an empire, then the Episcopal form was found essential. I believe it is the same to-day. All the churches in America are essentially local, not to say still colonial, churches, and there is no conception of a national church—that is, no conception of a united body which is able to bring the spirit of God to bear upon our political, economic, educational, and social life. Every prophet is doing what he can in the locality in which he finds himself, but nothing less than the united action of the religious life of America will suffice for the work of regenerating America. No congregational * See below, Chapter XV.

form of government can in these days serve the need of the nation, any more than the town meeting, valuable as it is in the village, can function in a great city, and still less in a State or throughout the country at large.

If there were in the churches to-day the same spirit of wisdom that inspired our fathers in the days when the nation was called upon to pass from a colonial to a national form of government, a way would be found to substitute for our provincialism a national religious life. The first duty of the Episcopal Church, in this crisis of the church and nation, is to cease its foolish talk about its ministry having an exclusive privilege ordained by Christ himself, while all the others are of man's invention and cannot give the gift of the Holy Ghost. We need to learn what it is our church has stood for from the time of the Reformation till the Oxford movement. Hooker and all the great teachers of the English Church in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries knew the value of the ministry of which they were justly proud, but few of them made the mistake which the men who followed Newman-as far as they dared follow him-made of taking the theory of Calvin, turning it upside down, putting a mitre on the head of the "presiding elder," and saying: "This and this only was ordained by Christ."

I believe that if the true teaching of the English Church would be first learned by our own people and then made known to others, there would be found not a few of our brethren of other churches who would say: "The day has come when the prophetic ministry of this country needs to be supplemented by the apostolic ministry." If that could be done, then we might look forward to the dayperhaps still far distant-when the work which our fathers began, when some of the same men who drew the Constitution of the United States drew the constitution of the Episcopal Church, would be crowned by such co-operation of the churches as would make us a religious nation

instead of a nation with many religious clubs. The men who framed the tabernacle of the Episcopal Church had a vision of a national church, and the day is drawing near when we feel that it is no longer a dream but a necessity.

The Episcopal Church again follows the synthetic method. It seeks to escape from provincialism by its form of government which emphasizes the universality of the church, but on the other hand it is not indifferent either to the country of which it forms a part nor to the democracy in which it believes. It does not balk at the papacy because it is unwilling to take the last step in an evolution which it recognizes; it objects to the papacy because, though it admits that it was the last step in the evolution of the historic ministry, it knows also that the papacy so changed its character that it became not the servant but the tyrant of the church. If it were only a question of consistency which is involved, one might be willing to admit that if the time were to come when the nations of the world would unite in an association which would not destroy the nations forming part of it, it might then be a practical question whether it would not be a feasible and practical thing to have a religious president of the churches, chosen not by a majority of Italian cardinals, but by some body which represented the suffrage of the universal church. It is not the theory of the papacy which is objected to; it is its practical working, which has always been fatal to democracy unless restrained by a large Protestant community.

The church which is to serve America must be an American church. Neither Italian nor English nor Scotch nor Dutch nor German nor Irish. No church at present existing in these United States is fitted to minister to the life of the whole nation. Each has its own contribution to make, and that of the Episcopal Church is not the least.

CHAPTER XII

WORSHIP

In the two preceding chapters we have considered the ministry, which in ecclesiastical language is technically known as the "discipline" of the church. An effort was made to show, not that the ministry of the Episcopal Church is the only valid ministry, or that others are without advantages of their own, but rather to point out why, as it seems to some of us, it is a ministry specially adapted to the needs of the present, since it was evolved in a time not unlike our own so far as the problem of the church is concerned.

In the same spirit, I now venture to set forth some of the reasons which lead Episcopalians to lay emphasis on the value of the Book of Common Prayer.

The first is this: they have learned by experience that the surest bond of union is neither doctrine nor discipline, but worship. They do not believe that their method of worship is the only one acceptable to our Heavenly Father, but they do know that it has been helpful to them, and therefore wish that it should be given careful consideration in any worship which the churches might be inclined to recommend as a bond of union.

John tells us that, in his vision, he was permitted to behold the heavenly worship. The "four beasts," which represent the powers of creation, and the "four and twenty elders," the representatives of humanity, join in the praise of the Creator, to whom at the beginning, "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." But this praise of the Creator is now supplemented by the adoration of the Lamb who "has redeemed them out of every kingdom and nation and tribe, and made them

kings and priests unto God." Then, we read, an angel brought forth the "golden censor, full of incense, which are the prayers of saints."

What church can claim to have reproduced that heavenly worship, the characteristics of which are eternal awe and everlasting thankfulness? None can claim to have made its spiritual tabernacle according to the pattern shown in the Mount. Yet may not the Episcopalian modestly say that his fathers, in bequeathing the liturgy which they had received from men of old, have left to his church a jewel which they intended it to keep, not for its own ornament alone, but as an heirloom for the children yet unborn? That is why they are not eager to enter into a "religious trust" without the assurance that that which has a history far more wonderful than those who are not familiar with it would be inclined to suppose, will be given the consideration it deserves. Many believe that even those who are convinced, as many devout men are, that no liturgy can be the final expression of the growing devotion of the church will, if they seriously consider the wonderful history of the Book of Common Prayer, feel that it combines to a great degree those two elements of devotion awe and thanksgiving-which are the essentials of the ideal worship as seen by John the Divine.

Dr. Huntington used to say that as every man is born either a Platonist or an Aristotelian, so is every man by nature either a liturgist or an extemporanean. There are multitudes of devout people to whom any liturgy is a bondage. They must pray with freedom of spirit, pouring out their hearts to God in the simple language of daily life. And because, in their public worship, they cultivate the habit of extemporary prayer, they have a freedom of utterance seldom attained by those who use exclusively a liturgy. In the ideal church room would be found for both the formal and the free. But because the latter is at present more popular than the former, to abandon the less